A majority of students in the West Bay region are meeting and exceeding proficiency levels in math and English, according to the state Department of Education, education as a whole in the area gets a B average in its quest to ensure that all students are proficient by the year 2014.
A little more than 80 percent -- 54 of the area's 66 schools -- were classified as high performing. That means a majority of teachers are now giving students the information they need to meet math and reading levels the department has prescribed for five years from now.
Superintendents across the region are celebrating their collective gains, but all are looking at the data critically to determine what it will take to keep those classifications moving higher. Federal mandates call for every student at all schools to be proficient in reading, writing and math within the next eight years.
"What makes our job difficult from here on to 2014, is that now we're looking at getting the rest of the kids -- that 15 to 20 percent -- to a proficient level," said East Greenwich Supt. Charles E. Meyers. "Those are sometimes the most challenging kids to work with."
The classifications are based on tests given to 72,000 Rhode Island students in grades 3 through 8 last October. The tests, called the NECAP, or the New England Common Assessment Program, were developed jointly by educators in Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont. The test evaluates students' grasp of English and math for each grade level, and the progress made by individual schools.
The state Department of Education created targets for test scores in English and math to help schools reach full proficiency by 2014. The targets are gleamed from the baseline established from a test of students in 2002. For an elementary school to meet this year's targets, 80.1 percent of its students had to be proficient in English and 68 percent proficient in math. For a middle school, the targets were 73.3 percent in English and 55.1 percent in math.
Schools are classified as high performing, moderately performing or showing insufficient progress. High-performing schools exceeded this year's standards and already meet the statewide targets for 2011. Moderately-performing schools met targets for the current year, and schools that showed insufficient progress missed the benchmarks entirely.
No schools in the West Bay showed insufficient progress.
In addition to the three classifications, schools can also be commended or cautioned. Schools that are commended have improved substantially in English and math or have extremely high test scores. Twenty of the 66 schools in the area -- or 30 percent -- were commended.
Schools that are classified with caution have missed up to three targets. Twelve schools were classified with caution. Four of those schools were in West Warwick. The John F. Horgan, Maisie E. Quinn and Wakefield Hills elementary schools were classified as moderately performing with caution, and Deering Middle School was classified as high performing with caution. Greenbush Elementary was classified as high performing.
The "caution' classifications should not cause alarm for parents, Supt. David P. Raiche said.
"This is part of the district assessment system, but it's just a piece of it," said Raiche. "My hope would be that parents don't base their decision on how effective a school is by the classification."
The district will use the scores and classifications in sessions with school improvement and district planning teams, Raiche said. Those teams, composed of teachers, administrators, parents and community members, chart the course for curriculum and professional development throughout the district, he said.
In addition to curriculum changes, Raiche said, after-school enrichment programs are also being studied to find out how effective they are and how they can be more helpful to students.
The West Bay area's two largest school districts, Cranston and Warwick, boasted strikingly differing results.
With the exception of two moderately performing schools, all of the schools in Warwick were classified as high performing, six with commendations. Neighboring Cranston, however, saw one third of its 21 schools receive moderate performance marks -- three of them classified with caution.
Warwick's stellar classifications came during a year when district teachers were still without a contract after nearly three years, noted Supt. Robert J. Shapiro, who credited teachers and administrators for the students' progress.
"It certainly says our teachers and administrators are performing well in the school system," Shapiro said. "We're working hard to constantly keep the scores good and improve on what we have. This is probably our best year yet."
The Cranston scores are good for a transitional period, said Asst. Supt. Peter L. Nero.
"We're extremely pleased with test scores we have," he said. "We have, on upside, not one low-performing school. ... In that same token, we have four schools that were commended. We think that's incredible."
Nero said his district faces more challenges than Warwick does, pointing to the enrollment of students from poorer-performing schools in Providence, for example; recent budget cuts, and scores of students who have learning disabilities or are learning English as a second language. The district, however, is helping students once they come into the district, he said.
"We believe that once they get here, students are introduced to sound teaching practices and a solid program," Nero said. "Once we begin to develop personal learning plans, we're able to identify problem areas, build upon those and test scores improve."
But that takes time, he said.
Meanwhile, the school system is working to more closely mesh its curriculum with the NECAP test, he said. The district is also in the midst of amiddle school reform, Nero said, which will add more math and literacy curricula to the class load.
"It's important for people to understand that this is a learning process for us as well," Nero said.
Different districts use the tests differently. Some districts, such as West Warwick, use them to determine widespread curriculum changes and to guide professional development seminars for teachers.
The East Greenwich school district, which has 2,400 students, uses the data to develop individual learning plans for struggling students, sometimes adjusting teaching strategies to play to student strengths, said Asst. Supt. Helen T. O'Hara.
"We use differentiated instruction because all students don't learn the same way," O'Hara said. "Some may want to use drama to show what they learned. Others want to write a three-page paper. They're showing they learned the information, but just in different ways."
The strategy seems to work: all four of the town's elementary schools and its middle school were classified as high performing and commended. At the elementary school with the highest score, Meadowbrook Farms, 84 percent of students were proficient in reading, 80 percent in math. At Archie R. Cole Middle School, 87 percent of students were found proficient in reading and 86 percent in math.
"We have a school improvement plan that's rooted in student performance," said Superintendent Meyers. "Even though we have high scores, we look at the breakdown and see what it is we need to work on."
Coventry schools were all rated high performing, with Western Coventry Elementary School receiving commendation. Three schools -- Washington Oak and Tiogue Elementary Schools and Knotty Oak -- were classified with caution.
Flat River Middle School, which was closed this year due to budget cuts, was one of the schools classified as high performing in last October's testing -- a distinction that proves bittersweet, said Supt. Kenneth DiPietro. The school received the highest district score in reading -- 77 -- and the fourth-highest score in Math -- 63.
"That we had a high-performing school and we had to close it" is dispiriting, he said. "But now we'll have kids who did well on the test sitting with kids who had challenges. They'll be able to be a resource to let their peers know that they can all do well."
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